Has the Law Been Completely Fulfilled?
When I discuss the concept of obeying the Commandments of Hashem, which is the basis of the Torah, Christians often respond, "We Christians believe that the Law of Moses has been fulfilled and now we are to live a higher law."
I have to admit that those words make no sense to me. What little of them I understand shocks me.
There is no such concept as the Law of Moses having been all fulfilled. That's like saying "I no longer have to eat because all the eating in the world has been fulfilled." Does that make any sense?
The Torah, Hashem's word that He taught us through Moses, is the inheritance of the Congregation of Jacob, as the Torah says (Deuteronomy 33:4). It is our birthright, and our responsibility. I don't know what this "all fulfilled" thing means.
The Torah is what gives us holiness, and the Torah explains how to fulfill Hashem's will. The Torah is our life, and our survival, both in this world and in the next.
We are required to fulfill Hashem's will, and we do so joyously, because it is what Hashem desires.
And if someone is on a lower level, and does not fulfill the Torah for the pure reason of doing Hashem's will, then he does it because it is the greatest opportunity that Hashem has ever given any living thing, and it will give great reward to those who fulfill it.
So what in the world does "it was all fulfilled" mean? Do they think it's like a box that has to be filled? Now the box has been filled, so we can stop packing?
The Torah is not a task that has to be completed. It's the way Hashem told us to live our lives.
I also have to wonder how they can claim that jesus fulfilled the Law in its entirety. In the Christian bible he makes it quite clear that he felt he was above the necessity of keeping the Law. He picked corn on the Sabbath, a clear violation of Torah Law. He did not wash his hands before eating, he cursed almost everyone, he was very vengeful, and he was disrespectful to his parents and to the Rabbis, to name just a few of his transgressions. So in what way has the Law of Moses been "fulfilled?"
We who follow the Torah must know this: "The hidden things pertain to Hashem our G-d, and the revealed to us and to our children forever, to obey all the Commandments of this Torah" (Deut. 29:28).
The Torah has not revealed to us that we must follow jesus. The Torah has revealed to us that we must obey all the Commandments, and that is how we reach Hashem. Not through any person, but through obeying the Commandments of the Torah.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Do we need an intermediary? from www.beingjewish.com
Do We Need Jesus?
Most Christians maintain that in order for anyone to approach G-d, or to "inherit the kingdom of Heaven" as they put it, or to "attain salvation" (again, their phraseology), one must go through jesus. They insist that one cannot do this except through jesus.
In the first place, it seems rather strange that the Torah should be so insistent that each and every one of us can reach G-d directly.
For example:
For this commandment that I command you this day, it is not too hard for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us and make us hear it?' It is not over the ocean.... But this thing is very close to YOU in YOUR mouth and your heart to do it."
-- Deut 30:11-14
Evidently, we ourselves are capable of fulfilling the Commandments and obeying Hashem's will.
And furthermore, we also find that even when the Jews are at the lowest level, even after having served idols, the Torah promises us, "And you will request from there (that low level) Hashem your G-d, and YOU WILL FIND, if you search with all your heart and all your soul" (Deut. 4:29).
We ourselves can find Hashem, if we just do it honestly and sincerely. Why does the Torah not say that we must do it through jesus? Because belief in jesus is not necessary, and has never been a part of Torah or Hashem.
And even jesus said so! Jesus said that if you fulfill the Torah, and do not believe in Jesus, you will still go to Heaven.
You don't believe me? He says this in Matthew, Chapter 12, verses 31 through 32:
I say to you, All types of sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven people. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of man, he shall be forgiven. But whoever speaks against the Holy Ghost, he shall not be forgiven, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.
In other words, it is possible not to believe in jesus, and still go to Heaven. But not believing in G-d is unforgivable.
I must also add at this point that this passage makes it hard to see why Christians claim that Christianity is a religion of forgiveness and love. Here is something that the Christian bible says can never be forgiven!
The passage I quote next makes both points even more strongly. Jesus says that there are people who will consider jesus to be their savior and god, and yet will still not go to Heaven!
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Matthew 7:21
In other words, even some of the people who do believe in Jesus and accept him, people whose belief in him was strong enough to give them (supposedly) the power to cast out devils, many of them will not go to Heaven anyway. Why not? Because even though they believed in Jesus, they did not do the will of G-d, whom the Christians call the Father. Apparently, it is not enough to believe in Jesus. One must also fulfill what the Torah says.
But the Torah also says that we must fulfill the words of the Torah! And the Torah does not say we need to believe in jesus!
So why should anyone believe that we need jesus?
Christians say that G-d cannot accept sin, so therefore everyone is doomed. But G-d, out of mercy, killed himself so that we would have forgiveness.
Yet the Torah clearly tells us that Hashem Himself forgives! All we have to do is repent. For example: "Let the evil person forsake his ways, and the man of sin forsake his evil thoughts, and let him return to G-d and He will have mercy on him, to our G-d, because He greatly forgives" (Isaiah 55:7).
And it says, "Do I desire the death of the wicked? says the L-rd G-d. What I want is for him to return from his ways and live!" (Ezekiel 18:23).
That's all it takes. Return from sin, and live!
Most Christians maintain that in order for anyone to approach G-d, or to "inherit the kingdom of Heaven" as they put it, or to "attain salvation" (again, their phraseology), one must go through jesus. They insist that one cannot do this except through jesus.
In the first place, it seems rather strange that the Torah should be so insistent that each and every one of us can reach G-d directly.
For example:
For this commandment that I command you this day, it is not too hard for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us and make us hear it?' It is not over the ocean.... But this thing is very close to YOU in YOUR mouth and your heart to do it."
-- Deut 30:11-14
Evidently, we ourselves are capable of fulfilling the Commandments and obeying Hashem's will.
And furthermore, we also find that even when the Jews are at the lowest level, even after having served idols, the Torah promises us, "And you will request from there (that low level) Hashem your G-d, and YOU WILL FIND, if you search with all your heart and all your soul" (Deut. 4:29).
We ourselves can find Hashem, if we just do it honestly and sincerely. Why does the Torah not say that we must do it through jesus? Because belief in jesus is not necessary, and has never been a part of Torah or Hashem.
And even jesus said so! Jesus said that if you fulfill the Torah, and do not believe in Jesus, you will still go to Heaven.
You don't believe me? He says this in Matthew, Chapter 12, verses 31 through 32:
I say to you, All types of sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven people. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of man, he shall be forgiven. But whoever speaks against the Holy Ghost, he shall not be forgiven, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.
In other words, it is possible not to believe in jesus, and still go to Heaven. But not believing in G-d is unforgivable.
I must also add at this point that this passage makes it hard to see why Christians claim that Christianity is a religion of forgiveness and love. Here is something that the Christian bible says can never be forgiven!
The passage I quote next makes both points even more strongly. Jesus says that there are people who will consider jesus to be their savior and god, and yet will still not go to Heaven!
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Matthew 7:21
In other words, even some of the people who do believe in Jesus and accept him, people whose belief in him was strong enough to give them (supposedly) the power to cast out devils, many of them will not go to Heaven anyway. Why not? Because even though they believed in Jesus, they did not do the will of G-d, whom the Christians call the Father. Apparently, it is not enough to believe in Jesus. One must also fulfill what the Torah says.
But the Torah also says that we must fulfill the words of the Torah! And the Torah does not say we need to believe in jesus!
So why should anyone believe that we need jesus?
Christians say that G-d cannot accept sin, so therefore everyone is doomed. But G-d, out of mercy, killed himself so that we would have forgiveness.
Yet the Torah clearly tells us that Hashem Himself forgives! All we have to do is repent. For example: "Let the evil person forsake his ways, and the man of sin forsake his evil thoughts, and let him return to G-d and He will have mercy on him, to our G-d, because He greatly forgives" (Isaiah 55:7).
And it says, "Do I desire the death of the wicked? says the L-rd G-d. What I want is for him to return from his ways and live!" (Ezekiel 18:23).
That's all it takes. Return from sin, and live!
Christianity is not a form of judaism from www.beingjewish.com
But no matter how Christians feel about it, Christianity is simply not Judaism. And by the Rules and Regulations of Judaism, the god that the Christians worship is not the same G-d as in Judaism. It is not acceptable to Jews at all.
I know that Christians don't believe this, and many won't accept it. That makes no difference to the Laws of Judaism. The Laws of Judaism stand as they have always stood, and any system that contravenes those Laws cannot be considered Judaism.
Part of the problem is that Christians don't really have much understanding of Jewish Law, so they don't really know how and why their beliefs contradict Judaism. The first (and often the only) difference they see is that they believe that the Messiah has come, and we Jews know that the Messiah has not yet come, could not possibly have come yet. That would indeed be enough of a difference, but the truth is that the differences are far greater than just that.
The point is that Christians do not get to decide whether their religion is like Judaism, since they have broken off and made changes. Those who keep the original religion are the ones who know, and are the ones who can say. We Orthodox Jews know Jewish Law. Christians do not.
Regardless of your belief, or variation of belief, no form of Christianity is Jewish. And no belief that includes jesus as messiah or savior or god can be Jewish
I know that Christians don't believe this, and many won't accept it. That makes no difference to the Laws of Judaism. The Laws of Judaism stand as they have always stood, and any system that contravenes those Laws cannot be considered Judaism.
Part of the problem is that Christians don't really have much understanding of Jewish Law, so they don't really know how and why their beliefs contradict Judaism. The first (and often the only) difference they see is that they believe that the Messiah has come, and we Jews know that the Messiah has not yet come, could not possibly have come yet. That would indeed be enough of a difference, but the truth is that the differences are far greater than just that.
The point is that Christians do not get to decide whether their religion is like Judaism, since they have broken off and made changes. Those who keep the original religion are the ones who know, and are the ones who can say. We Orthodox Jews know Jewish Law. Christians do not.
Regardless of your belief, or variation of belief, no form of Christianity is Jewish. And no belief that includes jesus as messiah or savior or god can be Jewish
What the Messiah is Supposed to Do. from www.beingjewish.com
What the Messiah is Supposed to Do.
One of the primary ways that we know that jesus was not the Messiah was simply because he did not fulfill any of the Messianic prophecies.
Many people have written on this subject, both in books and online. This article will not add anything new to what they have written, but since so many people write me about this subject, evidently this article needs to be here at this site as well.
The Prophets have written a great deal about what the Messiah will do when he comes. Likewise, the Oral Torah has much to say about this as well, of course. Numerous Rabbis or the post-Talmudic era have collected these teachings and written about them. I shall write some of what has been written by the Rabbis. I hope and plan to quote many of the verses from Tanach (Jewish Bible) in a separate article one of these days. (To write in detail all the Talmudic and Midrashic passages would be too much for me to do.)
The Messiah will be a human being, the child of two human parents. He will be by unbroken patrilineal descent the undisputed heir of King David.
The Messiah will be the unchallenged king of all Jews everywhere in the world. (When I say unchallenged, I mean that none of the Jews will challenge him, once it is understood who he is. There is little doubt in my mind that the Catholic Church -- and perhaps many Protestant Churches as well -- will challenge him, and call him the "antichrist." But they will soon realize their error, because they will have no power against the true and only Messiah.) He will be anointed with the special anointing oil that the Prophets used when appointing kings. The word "messiah" is Hebrew for "annointed."
The King Messiah will reinstate the royal dynasty of David to its ancestral regal status. He will be king, and his son will be king after him. The King Messiah will live a very long life. When he dies, his son will become king. When his son dies, also after a long life, the grandson will be king after him. After the grandson's reign, this world will come to an end. The world will be dormant for one thousand years, and then the World to Come will begin and last for all eternity. We will be resurrected, which means that our souls will return to our bodies, and we will live forever on this, earth, which will also be renewed.
The King Messiah will be very active in the Holy Temple. He will reinstate the Sanhedrin, our highest court, and they will reinstate the High Priest. Together, they will rebuild the Holy Temple. It is possible that the Messiah will not be anointed king until after the Holy Temple has been rebuilt, but in any case from the beginning he will lead all the Jews.
Sacrifices will once again be brought at the Holy Temple.
The Messiah will lead us in war to defend us when enemies of the Jews begin the War of Gog and Magog. The enemies of the Jews will attempt to destroy us, as they have been attempting to do for millennia, but they will not succeed. Nevertheless, great destruction will take place, unless everyone repents first. If everyone repents, the War of Gog and Magog will not take place.
The King Messiah will gather the scattered Jews from all over the world. The lost Ten Tribes of Israel will be restored to the Kingdom of Israel, and the King Messiah will rule all twelve Tribes. He will also restore the family systems within each Tribe as they had originally functioned.
The King Messiah and the Sanhedrin will restore the Sabbatical system and the Jubilee (which involve seven-year counts and a fifty-year count), as well as all other Commandments that we are unable to fulfill today. He will uphold and restore complete performance of the commandments and complete obedience to Hashem and His Torah. He will cause all Jews in the entire world to fulfill the Commandments of the Torah, and to uphold and strengthen the one and only true Judaism. Likewise, he will succeed in getting all the nations of the world, everyone alive, to acknowledge and serve the One True G-d, Hashem. This does not mean that they will convert and become Jews. It means that they will keep the Seven Laws that Hashem commanded the children of Noah.
The Messiah will not cause any changes in the Commandments, nor will he add to them or subtract from them. He will certainly not start a new religion, nor will his followers start a new religion.
The Messiah will regain the entire Land of Israel for the Jews, and the boundaries of the land will be as great as those promised to Abraham.
The King Messiah will be extremely learned in Torah and absolutely observant of all the Commandments as taught and explained in the Oral and Written Torah.
There will be utter peace in the world. After the King Messiah has been victorious, not a single nation will dare consider waging war, and no nation will rule over any other. People won't even study warfare or battle tactics anymore. And no one will have any reason to fear anyone else, ever again. There will be no racism or other forms of oppression, ever again.
The nations will send their emissaries to the King Messiah, and the King Messiah will teach the world how to live in peace, and how to want to live in peace. Then, everyone in the world will enjoy eternal peace, for as long as this world will last. The great Rabbi, Rav Shlomoh Freifeld, of blessed memory, said in a talk he once gave that I attended that the Messiah will be a great teacher.
Good things will be easily available to everyone. When the Messianic Era comes, there will be no poverty, no war, no hardships, no reason for jealousy or competition, and no boredom. Everything anyone needs will be easily and quickly available, so that good things will seem to grow on trees.
Our primary concern will be in growing more and more spiritual, and we will all enjoy doing this.
The Messiah will not need to perform any miracles to prove who he is. Nor would the miracles be very significant. The Messiah's purpose is to bring about the return of the Jews from exile, to restore our united practice of the Commandments of the Torah, to raise our conciousness to a high level of fear and love of Hashem, and to reinstate the Jewish kingdom in the Holy Land of Israel as Hashem originally established it under King David. Those are the Messiah's essential purposes. Even bringing peace and affluence to the world will be only so that the world will be able to peacefully pursue our purpose of serving Hashem through Torah study and prayer -- Jews as Jews, and Gentiles as Gentiles. Performing miracles is not particularly meaningful, since the Messiah will be an obviously righteous man, and the Torah commands us to obey the righteous.
What I'm driving at here is that all the miracles in the universe do not make someone Messiah, if he is not righteous. jesus, who contradicted the Torah, could not have been the Messiah, no matter how many miracles they claim he performed. The real Messiah, when he comes, may or may not perform miracles, but he will certainly not contradict the Torah in any way, shape or form.
The King Messiah may decide not to perform overt miracles, but he will nevertheless be immediately recognized as a man who can judge the inner essence and spirituality of people. His wisdom will be recognized by all, and many representatives of all the nations will also come to learn wisdom from him and get his advice.
And no one in the universe will have any doubt that the Messiah has come, and we won't have to argue with people about whether or not the Messiah has come. There will no longer be any missionaries, and no one will be teaching anyone else about any other religions, except maybe as history.
Everyone in the world will see the prophecies fulfilled, and there will be no doubts about any of it.
In every generation, the potential exists for the Messiah to come. The Torah says, in speaking of the coming of the Messiah, "In its time I will bring it quickly" (Isaiah 60:21). The Talmud explains that there are two ways the Messiah can come. Hashem has established a final time, a deadline. If we repent, the Messiah will come quickly, before the deadline. If we do not repent, the Messiah will nevertheless come at the deadline (Sanhedrin 98a).
If we merit it, the Redemption will come quickly, and we will see many open and overt miracles.
If we do not merit the Redemption when the deadline comes, if we have not repented by then,it will happen in stages. It will take longer to happen, and there will be no or few open miracles. And there will be war first. Hashem will cause a king as evil as Haman to pass laws against us, and he will oppress us until we repent. And to destroy us, he will set into motion the war of Gog and Magog, which you may have heard of under the inexplicable name of "Armageddon."
The great Chofetz Chayim, the leading Rabbi around a century ago, said that the war of Gog and Magog will take place in three stages. The first stage, he said, was World War One. He predicted that the second stage would be much worse, and he predicted the precise year of the beginning of World War Two.
But if we repent, the Messiah can come even now, right this very minute.
How is this possible? In each generation there is one (or more) righteous person who is worthy of being the Messiah, if the generation repents and the time is right for the Messiah to come. In every generation, since we have not all fully repented, the potential Messiah of each generation has lived his life, and passed away, as do all people, whether righteous or not, completely unaware that he would have been the Messiah.
Some people think that the greatest person, the most righteous person of each generation is the potential Messiah of that generation. Often, they base it on the person's notoriety. This is an error. Maimonides teaches that the Messiah can even be an unknown righteous person, a quiet, private person that not too many people know about. We make the mistake of thinking that we always know who the most righteous person of every generation is. But this is an error. The most righteous person could live in secret, doing what he must do privately and quietly. And we simple people are in any case not capable of judging who is more righteous than who, because we can't read minds and we don't know what's in anyone's hearts.
If we all repent, the potential Messiah of this generation will become the Messiah. Note that he is not yet the Messiah, and he was not born the Messiah. He was simply a very righteous person. He himself has no idea that he is the potential Messiah of that generation. Certainly, the people at large have no idea who the potential Messiah is.
If we make ourselves ready for the Messiah, Hashem will make the potential Messiah of the generation into the actual Messiah. Hashem will send the Spirit of Messiah that He created before He created the universe, and the potential Messiah of the generation will thereupon become the actual Messiah. The Messiah will then proceed to fulfill all the Prophecies that he is destined to fulfill.
Please understand something: Hashem loves and wants all of His children. He wants none to be left out when the Messiah comes. Hashem therefore wants all Jews to repent, and all of us brought into the Messianic Era. Just a few won't do, and even one left behind is too many. So we can't look at any particular group and expect their righteousness to bring the Messiah. Each and every one of us must work to improve ourselves.
Jewish Law requires us to pray that the redemption and the Messiah come soon, and to eagerly anticipate it happening. We must, each day, continue to pray and continue to hope that the Messiah will come, even though he did not come yesterday, and he did not come this morning.
For we know that the Messiah will come, because Hashem has promised that he will come.
May it be Hashem's will that we all merit the coming of the Messiah immediately, very soon, and may he come quickly.
To learn more about the Messianic Era, and also the World to Come, go to the "Life, the Afterlife, and the Soul Gateway."
One of the primary ways that we know that jesus was not the Messiah was simply because he did not fulfill any of the Messianic prophecies.
Many people have written on this subject, both in books and online. This article will not add anything new to what they have written, but since so many people write me about this subject, evidently this article needs to be here at this site as well.
The Prophets have written a great deal about what the Messiah will do when he comes. Likewise, the Oral Torah has much to say about this as well, of course. Numerous Rabbis or the post-Talmudic era have collected these teachings and written about them. I shall write some of what has been written by the Rabbis. I hope and plan to quote many of the verses from Tanach (Jewish Bible) in a separate article one of these days. (To write in detail all the Talmudic and Midrashic passages would be too much for me to do.)
The Messiah will be a human being, the child of two human parents. He will be by unbroken patrilineal descent the undisputed heir of King David.
The Messiah will be the unchallenged king of all Jews everywhere in the world. (When I say unchallenged, I mean that none of the Jews will challenge him, once it is understood who he is. There is little doubt in my mind that the Catholic Church -- and perhaps many Protestant Churches as well -- will challenge him, and call him the "antichrist." But they will soon realize their error, because they will have no power against the true and only Messiah.) He will be anointed with the special anointing oil that the Prophets used when appointing kings. The word "messiah" is Hebrew for "annointed."
The King Messiah will reinstate the royal dynasty of David to its ancestral regal status. He will be king, and his son will be king after him. The King Messiah will live a very long life. When he dies, his son will become king. When his son dies, also after a long life, the grandson will be king after him. After the grandson's reign, this world will come to an end. The world will be dormant for one thousand years, and then the World to Come will begin and last for all eternity. We will be resurrected, which means that our souls will return to our bodies, and we will live forever on this, earth, which will also be renewed.
The King Messiah will be very active in the Holy Temple. He will reinstate the Sanhedrin, our highest court, and they will reinstate the High Priest. Together, they will rebuild the Holy Temple. It is possible that the Messiah will not be anointed king until after the Holy Temple has been rebuilt, but in any case from the beginning he will lead all the Jews.
Sacrifices will once again be brought at the Holy Temple.
The Messiah will lead us in war to defend us when enemies of the Jews begin the War of Gog and Magog. The enemies of the Jews will attempt to destroy us, as they have been attempting to do for millennia, but they will not succeed. Nevertheless, great destruction will take place, unless everyone repents first. If everyone repents, the War of Gog and Magog will not take place.
The King Messiah will gather the scattered Jews from all over the world. The lost Ten Tribes of Israel will be restored to the Kingdom of Israel, and the King Messiah will rule all twelve Tribes. He will also restore the family systems within each Tribe as they had originally functioned.
The King Messiah and the Sanhedrin will restore the Sabbatical system and the Jubilee (which involve seven-year counts and a fifty-year count), as well as all other Commandments that we are unable to fulfill today. He will uphold and restore complete performance of the commandments and complete obedience to Hashem and His Torah. He will cause all Jews in the entire world to fulfill the Commandments of the Torah, and to uphold and strengthen the one and only true Judaism. Likewise, he will succeed in getting all the nations of the world, everyone alive, to acknowledge and serve the One True G-d, Hashem. This does not mean that they will convert and become Jews. It means that they will keep the Seven Laws that Hashem commanded the children of Noah.
The Messiah will not cause any changes in the Commandments, nor will he add to them or subtract from them. He will certainly not start a new religion, nor will his followers start a new religion.
The Messiah will regain the entire Land of Israel for the Jews, and the boundaries of the land will be as great as those promised to Abraham.
The King Messiah will be extremely learned in Torah and absolutely observant of all the Commandments as taught and explained in the Oral and Written Torah.
There will be utter peace in the world. After the King Messiah has been victorious, not a single nation will dare consider waging war, and no nation will rule over any other. People won't even study warfare or battle tactics anymore. And no one will have any reason to fear anyone else, ever again. There will be no racism or other forms of oppression, ever again.
The nations will send their emissaries to the King Messiah, and the King Messiah will teach the world how to live in peace, and how to want to live in peace. Then, everyone in the world will enjoy eternal peace, for as long as this world will last. The great Rabbi, Rav Shlomoh Freifeld, of blessed memory, said in a talk he once gave that I attended that the Messiah will be a great teacher.
Good things will be easily available to everyone. When the Messianic Era comes, there will be no poverty, no war, no hardships, no reason for jealousy or competition, and no boredom. Everything anyone needs will be easily and quickly available, so that good things will seem to grow on trees.
Our primary concern will be in growing more and more spiritual, and we will all enjoy doing this.
The Messiah will not need to perform any miracles to prove who he is. Nor would the miracles be very significant. The Messiah's purpose is to bring about the return of the Jews from exile, to restore our united practice of the Commandments of the Torah, to raise our conciousness to a high level of fear and love of Hashem, and to reinstate the Jewish kingdom in the Holy Land of Israel as Hashem originally established it under King David. Those are the Messiah's essential purposes. Even bringing peace and affluence to the world will be only so that the world will be able to peacefully pursue our purpose of serving Hashem through Torah study and prayer -- Jews as Jews, and Gentiles as Gentiles. Performing miracles is not particularly meaningful, since the Messiah will be an obviously righteous man, and the Torah commands us to obey the righteous.
What I'm driving at here is that all the miracles in the universe do not make someone Messiah, if he is not righteous. jesus, who contradicted the Torah, could not have been the Messiah, no matter how many miracles they claim he performed. The real Messiah, when he comes, may or may not perform miracles, but he will certainly not contradict the Torah in any way, shape or form.
The King Messiah may decide not to perform overt miracles, but he will nevertheless be immediately recognized as a man who can judge the inner essence and spirituality of people. His wisdom will be recognized by all, and many representatives of all the nations will also come to learn wisdom from him and get his advice.
And no one in the universe will have any doubt that the Messiah has come, and we won't have to argue with people about whether or not the Messiah has come. There will no longer be any missionaries, and no one will be teaching anyone else about any other religions, except maybe as history.
Everyone in the world will see the prophecies fulfilled, and there will be no doubts about any of it.
In every generation, the potential exists for the Messiah to come. The Torah says, in speaking of the coming of the Messiah, "In its time I will bring it quickly" (Isaiah 60:21). The Talmud explains that there are two ways the Messiah can come. Hashem has established a final time, a deadline. If we repent, the Messiah will come quickly, before the deadline. If we do not repent, the Messiah will nevertheless come at the deadline (Sanhedrin 98a).
If we merit it, the Redemption will come quickly, and we will see many open and overt miracles.
If we do not merit the Redemption when the deadline comes, if we have not repented by then,it will happen in stages. It will take longer to happen, and there will be no or few open miracles. And there will be war first. Hashem will cause a king as evil as Haman to pass laws against us, and he will oppress us until we repent. And to destroy us, he will set into motion the war of Gog and Magog, which you may have heard of under the inexplicable name of "Armageddon."
The great Chofetz Chayim, the leading Rabbi around a century ago, said that the war of Gog and Magog will take place in three stages. The first stage, he said, was World War One. He predicted that the second stage would be much worse, and he predicted the precise year of the beginning of World War Two.
But if we repent, the Messiah can come even now, right this very minute.
How is this possible? In each generation there is one (or more) righteous person who is worthy of being the Messiah, if the generation repents and the time is right for the Messiah to come. In every generation, since we have not all fully repented, the potential Messiah of each generation has lived his life, and passed away, as do all people, whether righteous or not, completely unaware that he would have been the Messiah.
Some people think that the greatest person, the most righteous person of each generation is the potential Messiah of that generation. Often, they base it on the person's notoriety. This is an error. Maimonides teaches that the Messiah can even be an unknown righteous person, a quiet, private person that not too many people know about. We make the mistake of thinking that we always know who the most righteous person of every generation is. But this is an error. The most righteous person could live in secret, doing what he must do privately and quietly. And we simple people are in any case not capable of judging who is more righteous than who, because we can't read minds and we don't know what's in anyone's hearts.
If we all repent, the potential Messiah of this generation will become the Messiah. Note that he is not yet the Messiah, and he was not born the Messiah. He was simply a very righteous person. He himself has no idea that he is the potential Messiah of that generation. Certainly, the people at large have no idea who the potential Messiah is.
If we make ourselves ready for the Messiah, Hashem will make the potential Messiah of the generation into the actual Messiah. Hashem will send the Spirit of Messiah that He created before He created the universe, and the potential Messiah of the generation will thereupon become the actual Messiah. The Messiah will then proceed to fulfill all the Prophecies that he is destined to fulfill.
Please understand something: Hashem loves and wants all of His children. He wants none to be left out when the Messiah comes. Hashem therefore wants all Jews to repent, and all of us brought into the Messianic Era. Just a few won't do, and even one left behind is too many. So we can't look at any particular group and expect their righteousness to bring the Messiah. Each and every one of us must work to improve ourselves.
Jewish Law requires us to pray that the redemption and the Messiah come soon, and to eagerly anticipate it happening. We must, each day, continue to pray and continue to hope that the Messiah will come, even though he did not come yesterday, and he did not come this morning.
For we know that the Messiah will come, because Hashem has promised that he will come.
May it be Hashem's will that we all merit the coming of the Messiah immediately, very soon, and may he come quickly.
To learn more about the Messianic Era, and also the World to Come, go to the "Life, the Afterlife, and the Soul Gateway."
Why Jews don't believe in Jesus
Why Jews Don't believe in Jesus from www.beingjewish.com/toshuv/
It's a very popular question. Why don't Jews believe Jesus was the Messiah? Aren't the proofs convincing?
This is a sensitive issue, and it is hoped that no one will be offended by the candid answer provided here.
We do not believe that it is prophesied that the Messiah will be crucified. We do not believe that the Messiah will be the son of G-d. We do not believe that he will be raised from the dead any more than anyone else. We do not believe that he will appear twice, in what some Christians call a second coming. We do not believe that the Messiah will be our "savior" in the sense that he will redeem us from our sins.
These are all fascinating claims to make concerning anyone, but they are all irrelevant to the Messiah for whom the Jews have awaited these three thousand years. None of these things are prophesied in the Jewish Bible.
What then is this Messiah for whom we wait? The Messiah will be a mortal man, born of a normal man and woman. He will be of the undisputed scion of David through his father. He will become uncontested ruler in the Land of Israel over all the People of Israel, that is, all Twelve Tribes of Israel. He will have at least one son, who will be king after the Messiah dies a normal death at an advanced age.
He will be as described by the Prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 11:2-4): "full of wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and the fear of G-d . . . he will smite the tyrant with the rod of his mouth, and slay the wicked with the breath of his lips . . ." (Maimonides explains this last as merely a parable, and not to be taken literally.)
Still, the Messiah will primarily be a prince of peace. As it says (Isaiah 52:7) "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace."
The Messiah will bring an end to all suffering and war. He will rescue the Children of Israel from exile. He will teach the world how to revere truth, and they will all return to G-d (though not necessarily to Judaism). All forms of warfare will be abolished.
The Torah will be strengthened by the teachings and practices of the Messiah. It will not be weakened nor changed in the slightest.
The Jews will no longer be subjugated nor oppressed by other nations. (In fact, there will be no oppression or subjugation anywhere in the world, by anyone against anyone.) The Jews will be free in the Land of Israel. We will have the Holy Temple once again. We will have the full body of the Law restored by the full Sanhedrin and all lesser courts. And the Messiah will do all this on his first try. Indeed, this is how we will know he is the Messiah.
These are the main prophecies that the Torah tells us concerning the Messiah. The man who causes these to happen will be the Messiah. Since these have not happened, the Messiah, the one foretold by the Torah, has not yet come.
It will be through these signs that he will be recognized. It will not be through miracles, nor through resurrection of the dead, nor through any new creation. It will be through the total rescue we will undergo (as described in brief above) that we will know the Messiah. And in truth, it is not for the Messiah that we eagerly wait, but for the Redemption itself. The Messiah is merely G-d's messenger and vehicle for that Redemption.
And that is a very important point. We do not await the Messiah. We await our redemption from exile and an end to all human suffering in this world. The Messiah's purpose is not to make it possible for us to go to Heaven. The Torah teaches us how to do that already.
The man the Christians worship may have been a good person, and he may have taught many good things. (Although I hasten to point out that there are many teachings in the Christian Bible that are completely unacceptable to Orthodox Jews, and incompatible to the teachings of the Torah.) But he was not the Messiah for whom we await and have long awaited. He may have been crucified, and that's a horrible thing. But that merely proves to us that he was not the Messiah.
He was not the son of G-d any more than we all are; precisely no more or less. The very thought is repugnant to a Jewish person. G-d having a son in that manner? We shudder at the suggestion.
Nor do we believe he was resurrected. But even if he was, that would not make him the Messiah.
All this that is claimed about jesus is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with the Messiah. There will indeed be a resurrection, but not at the time of the Messiah's coming. That will be later.
The Jewish faith has no place for most of the Christian Messiah beliefs. Nor is there any way to reconcile Jesus with the Jewish concept of the Messiah. The two concepts have very little in common.
We still await the Messiah, and our faith is still strong.
(I have said this in a number of places, and I will say it here again: If I get any e-mail letters from people trying to convince me that Jesus was the Messiah, I will respond without being sensitive to the writer's feelings, and I will not worry about being offensive. I will say exactly what I feel, and you will not appreciate my candid response. Judaism does not tolerate proselytizing. We don't do it to you, so have the decency not to do it to us.)
It's a very popular question. Why don't Jews believe Jesus was the Messiah? Aren't the proofs convincing?
This is a sensitive issue, and it is hoped that no one will be offended by the candid answer provided here.
We do not believe that it is prophesied that the Messiah will be crucified. We do not believe that the Messiah will be the son of G-d. We do not believe that he will be raised from the dead any more than anyone else. We do not believe that he will appear twice, in what some Christians call a second coming. We do not believe that the Messiah will be our "savior" in the sense that he will redeem us from our sins.
These are all fascinating claims to make concerning anyone, but they are all irrelevant to the Messiah for whom the Jews have awaited these three thousand years. None of these things are prophesied in the Jewish Bible.
What then is this Messiah for whom we wait? The Messiah will be a mortal man, born of a normal man and woman. He will be of the undisputed scion of David through his father. He will become uncontested ruler in the Land of Israel over all the People of Israel, that is, all Twelve Tribes of Israel. He will have at least one son, who will be king after the Messiah dies a normal death at an advanced age.
He will be as described by the Prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 11:2-4): "full of wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and the fear of G-d . . . he will smite the tyrant with the rod of his mouth, and slay the wicked with the breath of his lips . . ." (Maimonides explains this last as merely a parable, and not to be taken literally.)
Still, the Messiah will primarily be a prince of peace. As it says (Isaiah 52:7) "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace."
The Messiah will bring an end to all suffering and war. He will rescue the Children of Israel from exile. He will teach the world how to revere truth, and they will all return to G-d (though not necessarily to Judaism). All forms of warfare will be abolished.
The Torah will be strengthened by the teachings and practices of the Messiah. It will not be weakened nor changed in the slightest.
The Jews will no longer be subjugated nor oppressed by other nations. (In fact, there will be no oppression or subjugation anywhere in the world, by anyone against anyone.) The Jews will be free in the Land of Israel. We will have the Holy Temple once again. We will have the full body of the Law restored by the full Sanhedrin and all lesser courts. And the Messiah will do all this on his first try. Indeed, this is how we will know he is the Messiah.
These are the main prophecies that the Torah tells us concerning the Messiah. The man who causes these to happen will be the Messiah. Since these have not happened, the Messiah, the one foretold by the Torah, has not yet come.
It will be through these signs that he will be recognized. It will not be through miracles, nor through resurrection of the dead, nor through any new creation. It will be through the total rescue we will undergo (as described in brief above) that we will know the Messiah. And in truth, it is not for the Messiah that we eagerly wait, but for the Redemption itself. The Messiah is merely G-d's messenger and vehicle for that Redemption.
And that is a very important point. We do not await the Messiah. We await our redemption from exile and an end to all human suffering in this world. The Messiah's purpose is not to make it possible for us to go to Heaven. The Torah teaches us how to do that already.
The man the Christians worship may have been a good person, and he may have taught many good things. (Although I hasten to point out that there are many teachings in the Christian Bible that are completely unacceptable to Orthodox Jews, and incompatible to the teachings of the Torah.) But he was not the Messiah for whom we await and have long awaited. He may have been crucified, and that's a horrible thing. But that merely proves to us that he was not the Messiah.
He was not the son of G-d any more than we all are; precisely no more or less. The very thought is repugnant to a Jewish person. G-d having a son in that manner? We shudder at the suggestion.
Nor do we believe he was resurrected. But even if he was, that would not make him the Messiah.
All this that is claimed about jesus is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with the Messiah. There will indeed be a resurrection, but not at the time of the Messiah's coming. That will be later.
The Jewish faith has no place for most of the Christian Messiah beliefs. Nor is there any way to reconcile Jesus with the Jewish concept of the Messiah. The two concepts have very little in common.
We still await the Messiah, and our faith is still strong.
(I have said this in a number of places, and I will say it here again: If I get any e-mail letters from people trying to convince me that Jesus was the Messiah, I will respond without being sensitive to the writer's feelings, and I will not worry about being offensive. I will say exactly what I feel, and you will not appreciate my candid response. Judaism does not tolerate proselytizing. We don't do it to you, so have the decency not to do it to us.)
sites to help
http://www.beingjewish.com/toshuv/
go to
http://groups.msn.com/1CounterMissionarySite/antimissionarylinks.msnw
for many sites
go to
http://groups.msn.com/1CounterMissionarySite/antimissionarylinks.msnw
for many sites
Purpose for Jews Not For Jesus Blog
This is not meant with ANY DISRESPECT for Christianity or Christians. Judaism believes the righteous of all nations inherit a portion in the world-to-come. Jews just believe Jews should be Jewish and not pray to another god or religion. I will collect sources here to help misguided Jews who are swayed or being tempted to the other side.
Looking to convert to judaism?
http://longdistancejewishconversion.blogspot.com/
Looking to convert to judaism?
http://longdistancejewishconversion.blogspot.com/
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